


Nothing Gold Can Stay

by herbailiwick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crayons, Gen, Hallucifer, Healing, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean helps Sam handle some of his memories of Hell with a technique that seems like a long shot.</p><p>2nd Person (Sam's) POV. Brief mention of Hallucifer non-con.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Gold Can Stay

You don't have the words.

At first, when the world is bleary and the room is cool and you've apparently sweat, a lot, and he's calling you out again for noise violation like it's something between amusing and annoying to him, you just sit for a moment and try to anchor yourself back in reality again.

You remember what you were dreaming about, actually. An old classic, one of Lucifer's favorites. You take a moment to glance down at your abdomen, the sweat-soaked t-shirt plastered to it as you gently touch, just there, where the scars aren't physical but you remember so much history still, like muscle memory, like muscle PTSD.

You close your eyes sharply for a moment, ignore Dean's comment about needing his beauty sleep or something. 

Then, as you open your eyes, as you focus on the worry seeping out of his very pores, you hear him ask if you want to talk about it. You think it's actually a really good question. You let your mind run over what you just saw, the deep shame Lucifer was always good at wringing from you, the way he'd blame things on you, the pain that had tears leaking out of your eyes just now, even as you slept. 

"No," you finally say, voice cracking on the word, your lips feeling too dry and, oh, Dean's heading to the sink to get you some water. You sit and watch him, swallowing against more internal drought, feeling bad for Dean when Dean's shoulders slump a little while he's filling the cup. He just wants to help. He loves you so much. And it's not like he doesn't remember Hell.

He presses the cup into your hands with longing and trepidation so thick you feel the water catch in your throat and hurt a little, wincing. It's nothing to the pain of Hell, of course, but it's real like the pain of the scars in your hand. It's more important, the twinge in your throat, and you want Dean to understand.

"You wanted me to tell you, when I got back," Dean says, voice quieter than it should be. He's dealing with _you_ , after all, and you're doing everything wrong again, saying everything wrong, _being_ wrong. You remind yourself you're a grade A freak as you take another sip. This one's better. You clutch at the plastic cup, the sides of it feeling as crushable and pointless and recyclable as you feel, like it'd just be better for you, after use, if you were given a new start, a chance not to screw the world over time and time again.

Oh. Right. Dean. Poor Dean.

"Um." How to explain? "You know...it's...hard to share, yeah. But. It's not that I don't want to let you in on some of it, if that's what you really want." You swallow, take another sip. It goes down wrong again, and you wince, then you clear your throat. "I understand...that sometimes the painful truth feels better, since it's the truth. And sometimes...when two people acknowledge pain, it's. It's just. Better."

Dean is nodding slowly, looking at you in surprise. He looks like that's what he's trying to get you to understand, so you smile weakly at him, glad to see him a little less upset for you. 

"It's the words," you rush out, and you've lost him again. You chuckle, staring down into the cup for a moment. "It's the words," you say with a faint smile. "They don't want to cooperate." You glance up, and sigh for a moment. He's with you. You have him again. He's nodding carefully, once, and that's enough, that's everything, that's what you need.

And the tears are coming to your eyes again because, really, what did you do to deserve his careful nods and his cups of water and that ever-present, hovering, smothering worry?

"Thanks, Dean," you blurt out, and he's staring again, he's lost again, so you say, "For...the water." It's only part of the truth, but that's all you ever seem to manage to tell him anyway.

Dean drags you toward him the minute you set the glass down on the night stand. He tugs off the t-shirt, wipes at your torso with a face towel from the floor. You suddenly vaguely recall him wiping at your brow as he woke you. You take the towel from him when he's done, hug it against your chest in a gesture even you don't quite understand, and he's maneuvering you onto the bed, he's petting your side, he's turning out the light, he's curling around you in silence. You let out a surprised breath, wary and pleased and Dean's.

This sleep is easier.

In the morning, Dean's gone. The air feels too cool against your bare chest. You smell like dried sweat. You're sticky. Lucifer waves from your bed, starts talking to you about death statistics and the mating habits of zebras and you roll your eyes when he follows you into the bathroom so you can take a shower.

Lucifer points out that you cuddled a face towel the night before like it was that teddy bear you'd left in that motel room that Dad never went back for, your only bear, and, actually, it kind of hurts to remember, even though it shouldn't hurt because you're so old, you're lifetimes away from that moment, from that period of innocence because _look_ at you, look at your choices, and for a minute you really hope that Dean doesn't see you as that innocent and helpless, though you also hope he does because maybe you could fake it, then.

Lucifer is in the shower with you. Lucifer is naked. You ignore him. You run water over the scars, you press them, Lucifer disappears for a while. He comes back soon because you're all alone. He's pretty persistent when you're all alone. Honestly, he doesn't try anything at the moment. 

But there have been times where he has. 

There have been times where he's succeeded. But at least, even though the Devil feels real, the motel rooms and Bobby's place and the Impala have felt just as real. 

He's actually kind of boring, this shower. He's given you plenty of reason to be afraid of taking a shower in the past, but the sad thing is that you still find being dirty to be worse. You find it worse than being violated by the devil, after weighing your options, and there are so many things wrong with that, so many things that sometimes you're glad Dean's not there just so that he doesn't have to be near someone who thinks that way, who reasons the way you do.

When you come back out, Dean's there. Lucifer's still being boring, so he sort of just stands around or disappears on his own while Dean watches you dress. 

"I brought you something," Dean hesitates. You look over quickly, wondering why he's so uncertain.

"I'll deny it, 'f anyone asks," he continues. He sits on his bed, picking up the face towel you'd hugged and tossing it to the ground before reaching into a plastic bag with a swallow.

You blink at the thin pad of colored paper, at the box of 64 crayons. "Sixty-four?" is all you can seem to manage.

Dean's hand jerks away from the box, and he leans away from the construction paper and the crayons, and he scowls at you. "Oh, I’m sorry, did you want 120 with the surprise inside, princess?"

You put your hands up in front of you, smiling a little. "What are these for?"

Dean swallows again. "I thought maybe. I thought maybe...." Dean stares down at his hand, adjusts his ring, hunches his shoulders a little. He's not too keen on explaining, but it would be worse not to, in the end. "Lisa had this friend, okay?" Dean rushes out. "She was. Well." He grimaces.

"Dean?" you ask, concerned.

Dean glances up, rolls his eyes, says, "She was a therapist, okay? Anyway, the work she did...it was kind of like when we helped Lucas. Remember Lucas?"

"Of course," you nod. 

"And when I was little too, I didn't talk for a while after Mom's death. I couldn't. I couldn't, Sam." 

You swallow. You remember that from the journal.

"So that's what it's for. You should make like Lucas. It's, um. Scientifically proven," Dean winces at himself again. "So, it should help."

Dean stands, straightens his jacket. He's halfway to the door. He's getting ready to head out again. You panic.

"Could you stay here?" you blurt out.

Dean looks at you like you've lost more than just the Great Wall of Sam. You duck your head a little. 

"It's just, he's been leaving me alone today, while you're here," you say. Your voice is a little scratchy. You should probably be hungry. You aren't. 

"Okay," Dean finally says. He turns on the television and starts to watch. You open a box of 64 crayons. In your life, you have never opened a new box of 64 crayons.

You have a hard time picking one for too long. And then, all of a sudden, you grab the black crayon. And then you grab the red one. And one of the oranges that looks kind of mean. And you open the pad of construction paper with a guilty swallow, but it's what you're supposed to do, right? 

It takes two commercial breaks and Dean nervously pacing before you start to draw. Dean drops back onto his bed with no further complaints, and you feel so stupid because you're drawing squiggles.

Seriously. You're drawing heavy, ugly squiggles. There are spirals, lots of spirals, like tornadoes on the page, and angry, jagged lines because, dammit, you're angry. You didn't deserve it.

And you use more than just the one page. There'd be no way to contain Hell to one page of scribbles. 

You're crying a little, between solid patches of orange and the other oranges you've started to pull in, between more jagged lines and the feeling of wax bending to your will and the fact that the black crayon is really paying the price, is dying out like your soul had sometimes wanted to.

You gnash your teeth when you draw a little red stick figure and cross him out. You spend an entire page carefully drawing a set of bright wings and a scribbled being in the middle made with the shining gold. You cross him out with black, you sob a little as you cross him out, and Lucifer steps closer, tells you it's not a good likeness, but you don't care, you have Dean and you have the black crayon, and you cross him out, and when you finish crossing him out, Lucifer has disappeared again, and you sigh in relief.

Dean glances over from time to time to make sure you're okay. He seems glad it's doing something, whatever that something is, for you, and he seems a little put out that he can't offer better help, but as help goes it's not bad.

Finally, Dean's curiosity gets the best of him, and he grabs the book.

"These are. These are just scribbles," he says, confused, but somehow he sort of understands them too. "Sad scribbles," he admits. "Angry scribbles."

You take the book of construction paper back from him, and he calls you a bitch, and you don't say anything, you just start drawing again.

You wait until he loses interest for a moment to draw how your dream felt. 

"Why are you using so much gold?" he asks.

You glance up. "Lucifer," you finally say.

He looks sorry that he asked.

You get tired after eleven pages of the colored paper. 

When you have a dream after that, you try to scribble out the tension with your crayons. You don't stop until you've filled the entire book, the front and back of each page. 

The drawings are less and less frequent, but you still don't protest in the slightest when Dean shows up with a thicker pad of paper. However, there are two small boxes of crayons as well.

"What are those?" You ask with hesitance.

Dean picks up the boxes, showing them to you with a hint of fear and pride, like he knows you'll appreciate the gesture but doesn't know if it's the right one. "Basic 8, and 8 metallic. For black and for...Lucifer."

You reach out and accept the small boxes into your large, damnable hands, smiling a little, genuinely touched. "Thanks, Dean," you say. "You know, Lisa's friend would be proud."

Maybe you'd both deny it if pressed, but neither of you are anything but serious in that moment. 


End file.
